沒有國民黨就沒有中國, Without the Kuomintang there would be no China, A Republic of China Story
- Thread starter CELTICEMPIRE
- Start date
Pretty good, though there are some hardcore nationalists in China who want to confront India over some border disputes.
I haven't made any, the world is pretty similar, with a few exceptions. China includes Taiwan, Korea is unified, and Belarus and Russia are unified.
I'll get to that in the future.
Not much yet, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to keep India on his good side and his successors didn't want to cause any trouble.
I wonder if there's any way to peacefully negotiate it. China and India allied make a very very strong team to fight against the American unipolar world order.
Towards a New Millennium
Things were, in general, going well for China in the final years of the 20th century. Things were going even better for China's President Lien Chan. The late 90s and early 2000s saw the KMT at the height of it's popularity since the end of one party rule. While Lien Chan himself was not an extremely popular or charismatic leader, he presided over good times, so people liked him. Vice President James Soong was trying to build up his own base of support for a future run. He was hoping that Lien Chan would decline to run for a second term. But 2002 still was years away. In 1998, Premier Chiang Hsiao-wu died of congestive heart failure at the age of 53. Several of Chiang Ching-kuo's other children died early deaths too. Lee Yuan-tsu, minister of education under Chiang Ching-kuo and a pro-democracy reformist, was chosen as Chiang's replacement.
Not everyone was happy, however. Lien's predecessor Li Ao made a point of criticizing him at nearly every turn. But Li was criticizing everyone. He spent a lot of time attacking two men from Taiwan who had left the KMT. The first was Lee Teng-hui who helped found the Federalist movement in the early 90s and received some write-in votes in the 1996 Presidential election. Li accused him of being a crypto-separatist and a Hanjian [1] who sought to undermine the Republic of China. The second was his old Vice President Lin Yang-kang. Lin and the rest of the China Youth Party had decided to ally with the KMT once again, infuriating Li Ao. An Amendment passed during Li Ao's presidency had changed the frequency of legislative elections from 4 years to three, meaning that elections would be held in 1999 instead of 2000. Because of infighting among the KMT's opponents, the party coasted to victory and increased it's majority.
In 1999 Lien Chan achieved a major accomplishment when the government of Sri Lanka agreed to allow China to construct a naval base there. This was seen throughout the world as an attempt by China to control shipping in the Indian Ocean. This was obviously met with concern by India, but also by the United States. There were fears that China might begin to try to replace the US as global hedgemon. A flurry of articles and books were published that predicted the inevitable class between China and America, with some saying it would be a new cold war while others said it would be WWIII. Most of the American public was more optimistic though. America was increasingly an important source of tourism to China. Western tourists who visited China were treated well and were well-liked by the locals. Of course there were some exceptions, and in 1999 two English tourists were deported for aiding the Tibetan Separatist movement.
As the year 2000 came, the world's computers continued to function. In China many computers were operating on the Republic of China Calendar and the year just went from 88 to 89. China's military, economic, and cultural might was increasing with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. It looked as if a Chinese century was inevitable. Meanwhile, a new generation of Chinese was beginning to assert its influence. This generational cohort, known as Gen X in the West, grew up with the World War II and the Civil War being things their parents talked about and their grandparents fought in. They had very few memories of Chiang Kai-shek. They were generally more liberal-minded in both politics and their approach to society. Confucianism, gender roles, traditional sexual mores, and other aspects of Chinese life were seen as outdated, fueling generational divides that would manifest themselves more clearly in the 2000s. As the ball dropped in Shanghai's Nanhui District, most people were looking forward to a bright future.
1: Traitor to China
Not everyone was happy, however. Lien's predecessor Li Ao made a point of criticizing him at nearly every turn. But Li was criticizing everyone. He spent a lot of time attacking two men from Taiwan who had left the KMT. The first was Lee Teng-hui who helped found the Federalist movement in the early 90s and received some write-in votes in the 1996 Presidential election. Li accused him of being a crypto-separatist and a Hanjian [1] who sought to undermine the Republic of China. The second was his old Vice President Lin Yang-kang. Lin and the rest of the China Youth Party had decided to ally with the KMT once again, infuriating Li Ao. An Amendment passed during Li Ao's presidency had changed the frequency of legislative elections from 4 years to three, meaning that elections would be held in 1999 instead of 2000. Because of infighting among the KMT's opponents, the party coasted to victory and increased it's majority.
In 1999 Lien Chan achieved a major accomplishment when the government of Sri Lanka agreed to allow China to construct a naval base there. This was seen throughout the world as an attempt by China to control shipping in the Indian Ocean. This was obviously met with concern by India, but also by the United States. There were fears that China might begin to try to replace the US as global hedgemon. A flurry of articles and books were published that predicted the inevitable class between China and America, with some saying it would be a new cold war while others said it would be WWIII. Most of the American public was more optimistic though. America was increasingly an important source of tourism to China. Western tourists who visited China were treated well and were well-liked by the locals. Of course there were some exceptions, and in 1999 two English tourists were deported for aiding the Tibetan Separatist movement.
As the year 2000 came, the world's computers continued to function. In China many computers were operating on the Republic of China Calendar and the year just went from 88 to 89. China's military, economic, and cultural might was increasing with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. It looked as if a Chinese century was inevitable. Meanwhile, a new generation of Chinese was beginning to assert its influence. This generational cohort, known as Gen X in the West, grew up with the World War II and the Civil War being things their parents talked about and their grandparents fought in. They had very few memories of Chiang Kai-shek. They were generally more liberal-minded in both politics and their approach to society. Confucianism, gender roles, traditional sexual mores, and other aspects of Chinese life were seen as outdated, fueling generational divides that would manifest themselves more clearly in the 2000s. As the ball dropped in Shanghai's Nanhui District, most people were looking forward to a bright future.
1: Traitor to China
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Nice look at how things are changing as the old guard ages out and the new generation starts to rise.
Well, that was unexpected, especially considering the timing of it...but nevermind.
Li Ao being Li Ao(ch)...and his actions sometimes makes me wonder if he ITTL actually a KMT plant (or at least a plant of a faction of the KMT).
Would be interesting to see how China transportation system progressed ITTL, especially in terms of its railway (would the rolling stock for (not-yet) high speed intercity rail services would be indigenous made from the get-go around this time) and aviation sector (which thanks to its geography would be more likely to be inducing (at the expense of the trijet) the demand of efficient two-engine long-haul wide bodies like Airbus A300, Boeing 767 etc..)
P/s:
Li Ao being Li Ao(ch)...and his actions sometimes makes me wonder if he ITTL actually a KMT plant (or at least a plant of a faction of the KMT).
Would be interesting to see how China transportation system progressed ITTL, especially in terms of its railway (would the rolling stock for (not-yet) high speed intercity rail services would be indigenous made from the get-go around this time) and aviation sector (which thanks to its geography would be more likely to be inducing (at the expense of the trijet) the demand of efficient two-engine long-haul wide bodies like Airbus A300, Boeing 767 etc..)
P/s:
- I feel like Hong Kong was up to this point, was developing similarly to OTL economically wise , however after the handover, the economic development of Hong Kong would be better than ITTL thanks to less interference from Nanking(or is it Nanjing already?).
- Now that you have once again mentioned computers, have you seen the Asianometry recent video regarding Wang Laboratories? It would be interesting to see the fate of the Wang family ITTL as an addendum to a future (or past) chapter regarding technology.
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I hope China doesn't go too liberal. It would feel weird. Asian conservative societies take time to liberalise. I expect a modern culture similar to that of OTL Japan and SK with regards to liberalism.
Well it is a country of more than 1 billion people that has arguably, IMO, probably more interaction with the outside world than even India (if the License Raj was existed around a similar timeframe as IOTL) ITTL, I agree with you for the most part, although with that amount of population, I would not be surprised if there are already some certain cities (or even provinces) councillors that are demanding legalization of same-sex marriage by this point (and others that are going the exact opposite way as well)
As for Japan and
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Remember China's traditions and culture is much stronger without the CCP destroying much of it in the Cultural Revolution. And even CCP China isn't that friendly to same-sex relationships. I expect a similar level of cultural acceptance similarly to what Japan has OTL but same-sex marriage is not going to happen anytime soon I think.
Asian cultures are deeply conservative by default. We have long traditions and old cultures and greater religiosity, which would be higher in China without again, CCP clampdown.
Speaking of which, how big would the population of major Chinese cities be compared to their OTL counterparts, especially with Nanjing still the capital and Beiping merely just one of many Chinese cities?
Dunno about that. You mentioned South Korea and Japan but you didn’t mention Taiwan, which is fairly liberal despite being both more ‘traditional’ Chinese and having been ruled by a military dictatorship for a huge chunk of its history. See, for example, their allowing same-sex marriage recently.
My own take is that you’d likely have the country being kind of a patchwork in this regard. So for instance, more liberal and cosmopolitan regions and cities like Shanghai or Hong Kong or Shenzhen or Taiwan would have stuff like same-sex marriage or civil partnerships, but the interior provinces like Sichuan or the Muslim-majority regions like Xinjiang or Gansu wouldn’t.
Li Ao was an... interesting individual to say the least.
OTL from what I've read, Li Ao was pretty much only against the KMT because his father was mistreated by them. But his parents still followed Chiang to Taiwan (this is noteworthy as Northeasterners made up a very small portion of those who fled to Taiwan). Li Ao became a pro-democracy activist and spent a long time in prison. Then in 2000 a rebel faction of the KMT nominated him for President but barely anyone voted for him. In his later years he also praised the Chinese Communist Party.
I will get to this in a later update.
Asianometry's channel is good, so I'll have to check it out, but I didn't know about Wang Laboratories until now.
The License Raj ended about a decade earlier than OTL.
There really isn't much of a movement for same-sex marriage in China at this point, as 2000 is before it was legal anywhere.
China is more populous and urbanized than OTL, so the populations would be larger. Nanjing TTL has 5 million inhabitants compared to 4.3 million in OTL 2000. Beiping is only slightly larger than OTL, and Hong Kong is about the same.
China has all those things, and I can't believe I forgot to update everyone on the Chinese space program, it will be featured in a future update.
Jiangsu province has Shanghai and Nanjing, Hebei has Beijing and Tianjin, and Guangdong has Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Canton), so those would be the most likely provinces to legalize same-sex marriage, though all three of them have very large rural populations as well. Out of China's major cities, Beijing is the most disposed to left-wing politics.
And yeah, the West is very socially conservative, and a lot of the western provinces still heavily restrict birth control.
The effects of culture revolution in context of "destroying Chinese culture" is overblown, Mao said that women hold up half of the sky before the culture revolution and did some radical reform to a chinese liberal society and there was no backlash for the Chinese they were already an atheist before the culture revolution, in reality culture revolution was mostly a Mao power trip when he went purging reforms like Deng and intellectuals